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University of Cambridge and Cambridge United announce strategic partnership

A group of student footballers wearing University of Cambridge kit

source: www.cam.ac.uk

The University of Cambridge and Cambridge United Football Club have agreed a new partnership with the shared ambition of working together to help the wider city and the community, supporters, and current and prospective students.

“Sport can inspire people of all ages and backgrounds”Professor Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education

The partnership will focus on three initial areas – community, inclusion and sport – with pilot programmes being planned. These will include events and visits to the Club’s stadium as part of initiatives to encourage more prospective students from deprived backgrounds around the country to apply to the University; and to enable more existing students to attend games. 

The University and Club have also established a high level partnership group which will meet regularly to drive progress and identify areas of opportunity. New programmes are likely to focus on supporting wellbeing and mental health, encouraging healthy lifestyles and improving access to sport.

Three of the University’s colleges will take part in the initial phase of activity as the University and Club begin working together.  The Club has also agreed that this year’s Varsity Match will take place at the Abbey Stadium on 15 March 2024. 

Prof Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, whose remit covers University sport, said: “The University is a global institution, but it is also right at the heart of our local community here in Cambridge, working with others in partnership. We know that sport can inspire people of all ages and backgrounds, and I welcome this exciting new partnership with Cambridge United which I hope will help build new and positive relationships which further benefit the city and its communities.” 

Shaun Grady Chair of the Board at CUFC said: “We are very pleased to be formalising our relationship with Cambridge University with whom we have had many different and positive contacts over recent years – and of course many of our fans work in, with and around  the University itself.

“We have identified areas where we will be looking to collaborate over the coming years: community, inclusion and sport. We are excited about the opportunities ahead to do more together for the wider benefit of the city and look forward to welcoming the new Vice Chancellor to the Abbey Stadium over the coming months.’



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Getting maximum calories in shortest time is the priority for bumblebees

Bumblebee foraging for nectar.

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Research has found that bumblebees make foraging choices to collect the most sugar from flowers in the shortest time – even if that means using more energy in the process – to provide an immediate energy boost for the colony.

It’s amazing that even with a brain smaller than a sesame seed, bumblebees can make such complex decisions.Hamish Symington

A new study investigating nectar drinking in one of the most common bumblebees in the UK, Bombus terrestris, has found that when foraging they maximise the amount of nectar sugar they take back to the colony each minute.

To make their choices, the bumblebees trade off the time they spend collecting nectar with the energy content of that nectar. This means they will forage to collect nectar that’s hard to access – but only if the sugar content of that nectar makes it worth doing so.

This big-and-fast approach contrasts with honeybee foraging: honeybees make their decisions by optimising their individual energy expenditure for any nectar they collect. This more measured approach should prolong the honeybee’s working life.

“As they forage, bumblebees are making decisions about which nectar sources will give the greatest immediate energetic return, rather than optimising the energy efficiency of their foraging,” said Dr Jonathan Pattrick, joint first author of the report, who started the research while in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences.

Pattrick, now based at the University of Oxford, added: “Our results allow us to make predictions about the sorts of flowers the bumblebees are likely to visit, which could inform the choice of which flowers to plant in field margins to support these important pollinators. It’s also relevant to crop breeders who want to make varieties that are ‘better’ for bumblebees.”

The results are published today in the journal iScience.

Over six months the researchers made 60,000 behavioural observations of the bumblebees, allowing them to precisely estimate bumblebee foraging energetics. It was painstaking work: each bumblebee in the study was watched for up to eight hours a day without a break.

The team used vertically and horizontally oriented artificial flowers, with surfaces that were slippery and difficult for the bumblebees to grip.

A custom computer program allowed the team to measure the split-second timing as the bumblebees flew between the artificial flowers and foraged from them. This meant the team could track how much energy the bumblebees spent flying as well as how much they collected when drinking, and identify how the bumblebees decided whether to spend extra time and energy collecting high-sugar nectar from slippery flowers, or take the easier option of collecting lower-sugar nectar from flowers they could land on.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wD8-2q6Wpkw%3Fsi%3DdEh_yZQFpEdtECox%26enablejsapi%3D1%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.cam.ac.uk

“It’s amazing that even with a brain smaller than a sesame seed, bumblebees can make such complex decisions,” said Dr Hamish Symington in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and joint first author of the report.

He added: “It’s clear that bumblebee foraging isn’t based on a simple idea that ‘the more sugar there is in nectar, the better’ – it’s much more subtle than that. And it highlights that there’s still so much to learn about insect behaviour.”

Individual bumblebees were given one of three tests. In the first test, the nectar on both vertical and horizontal artificial flowers had the same amount of sugar, and the bumblebees made the obvious choice to forage from the horizontal flowers, rather than spend extra time and energy hovering at the vertical ones. In the second test, the nectar on the vertical flowers was much more sugary than the nectar on the horizontal flowers, and the bumblebees chose to drink almost exclusively from the vertical flowers.

In the third test, the vertical flowers offered nectar which was only slightly more sugary than the horizontal flowers. This created a situation in which the bumblebees had to make a trade-off between the time and energy they spent foraging and the energy in the nectar they were drinking – and they switched to feeding from the horizontal flowers.

The results show that bumblebees can choose to spend additional time and energy foraging from hard-to-access nectar sources – but only if the reward is worth it.

Bumblebees drink nectar from flowers, then offload it in their nest – by regurgitation – for use by other bumblebees in the nest. Unlike honeybees, bumblebees only store a small amount of nectar in the nest, so they need to make the most of every opportunity to forage.

This research was funded by BBSRC.

Reference

Pattrick, J G et al: ‘Bumblebees negotiate a trade-off between nectar quality and floral biomechanics.’ iScience, Oct 23. DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108071



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

It’s high time for alliances to ensure supply chain security, researchers urge

Aerial shot of parked trucks, Scunthorpe, United Kingdom

source: www.cam.ac.uk

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the interconnected nature of global supply chains, and showed how a disruption in one part of the world can have global effects. In 2021, supply disruptions were cost the global economy an estimated $1.9 trillion.

Understanding supply chain interdependencies between companies, sectors, and countries is vital for many challengesAlexandra Brintrup

An international team of researchers, including from the University of Cambridge, are calling on government agencies and national banks to support an effort to map the billions of connections in the global supply network which, among other impacts, could reduce tax evasion by as much as €130 billion annually in the European Union.

The researchers say that understanding supply networks could also improve supply security, promote objective monitoring of the green transition, and strengthen human rights compliance. Writing in the journal Science, they emphasise that international alliances, backed by government organisations and the research community, are needed for such an understanding.

Even though most companies know their immediate trading partners, they depend on countless other relationships up and down the supply chain. A shortage anywhere in the supply network may affect suppliers, suppliers of suppliers, and so on, as well as customers and their customers’ customers.

“Supply disruptions caused an estimated loss of 2% of global GDP in 2021 – approximately $1.9 trillion – and significantly contributed to the current high inflation,” said lead author Anton Pichler from the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) in Vienna. “For a long time, it was unthinkable to analyse the global economy at the company level, let alone its complex network of supply interconnections. That is changing now.”

“Understanding supply chain interdependencies between companies, sectors, and countries is vital for many challenges, from identifying how disruptions may emerge and cascade across economies, through to monitoring carbon emissions and ensuring ethical and sustainable practice,” said co-author Professor Alexandra Brintrup from Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing.

For almost a century, only aggregated data – such as the average values of entire sectors – could be analysed. Predicting how individual company failures would affect the system was simply not possible. What happens to the economy when a specific company stops its production? What if an earthquake paralyses an entire region?

“Now, a combination of new micro-datasets, methods based in machine learning, and multiple government initiatives are creating the ability to map entire economies, which can give us the tools to answer some fundamental questions with real and timely impact,” said Brintrup.

Although the volume of data is vast – there are approximately 300 million companies worldwide, each with an average of 40 domestic suppliers, resulting in up to 13 billion supply connections – researchers can map the connections between individual companies.

Currently, value-added tax (VAT) data is the most promising option for reconstructing reliable large-scale supply networks. Countries including Spain, Hungary and Belgium use a standardised VAT collection that practically records all domestic business-to-business (b2b) transactions. With these, it’s possible to map the entire national trade of a country.

In most countries like Germany, Austria, or France, where VAT is not collected for individual b2b transactions but only accumulated over a specific period, such mapping is not possible.

“The standardised b2b collection could reduce administrative overheads for companies and would contribute substantially to tax compliance,” said co-author Christian Diem, also from CSH. Estimates suggest that VAT-related fraudulent activities in the European Union (EU) amount to €130 billion annually.

Beyond tax evasion, other global challenges also depend on the detailed knowledge of supply networks. “For individual companies, it’s nearly impossible to ensure that all trading partners, their suppliers, and their suppliers’ suppliers operate in an environmentally friendly way and in compliance with human rights,” said Pichler. “If this were centrally documented in a gigantic network, it could be more easily ensured.”

The next step is to link trade data from different countries. Currently, the EU records trade in goods between its member states at the company level. If it also included services and linked them with VAT data, this could lead to a comprehensive cross-border company-level network. According to the authors, this would represent almost 20% of the global GDP.

The European Commission laid the legal foundation by proposing ‘VAT in the Digital Age.’ “Unfortunately, this is far from being realised,” said co-author Stefan Thurner, of the Complexity Science Hub. “So far, we do not have a single situation where the supply chain networks of any two countries have been joined and merged. This would be an essential next step.”

To create a truly international picture of supply interconnections, hundreds of datasets must be joined, analytical tools developed, and an institutional framework must be created, together with secure infrastructure for storing and processing enormous amounts of sensitive data.

“To advance this endeavour, a strong international alliance of various interest groups is required, including national governments, statistical offices, international organisations, central banks, the private sector, and academia,” said Thurner. The first collaboration in science, involving authors in macroeconomics, supply chain research, and statistics, now aims to establish a foundation. The researchers hope to inspire others to join their efforts.

The researchers hosted representatives of European ministries, national banks, statistical offices, and researchers at a workshop in Vienna on June 5 and 6, 2023.

Reference:
Anton Pichler et al. ‘Building an alliance to map global supply networks.’ Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.adi7521

Adapted from a CSH press release.



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Sustained, purposeful investment key to ‘leaving no girl behind’, either in education or beyond

Young girl in Nepal

source: www.cam.ac.uk

A UK-funded programme to support out-of-school girls in low-income countries has significantly enhanced their learning, confidence, opportunities and prospects, a new report says. However, sustained, strategic and targeted investment will be needed to preserve these gains.

It is clear that we cannot just switch the support pipeline off for marginalised girls, and expect all those good results to be sustainedPauline Rose

The observations come from an evaluation of 14 projects across 10 countries in Africa and South Asia developed under the ‘Leave No Girl Behind’ (LNGB) initiative, launched in 2016. LNGB is part of the broader Girls’ Education Challenge, run by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

The programme targets the most marginalised girls through structured interventions aimed at improving their academic skills and life chances. Collectively, these have aimed to reach 230,000 adolescent girls aged 10-19. The girls involved tend to come from very poor backgrounds. Many have married early, are teenage mothers, or have disabilities. All have either never attended school or dropped out early.

The new analysis is the latest in a series of reports evaluating the impact of the UK’s recent, targeted support for the world’s least-advantaged girls in general. It was undertaken by a collaboration led by the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, University of Cambridge. The research assessed the outcomes of the LNGB projects for more than 17,000 adolescent girls, complementing this with case studies from projects in Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal.

The verdict is broadly positive. As well as enhancing basic literacy and numeracy skills, LNGB initiatives were found to have improved the girls’ life skills and well-being. Participants often displayed greater confidence and increased self-esteem. This enabled them to have more control over decisions relating to their education and work choices. Girls further reflected on how their future aspirations had changed for the better.

Despite this, the researchers highlight several ongoing challenges. Even after participating in an LNGB programme, many girls still encountered significant economic challenges and deep-rooted gender and social norms, which acted as barriers to their education and career development. With the Girls’ Education Challenge concluding in 2024, the report emphasises the need to engage a range of stakeholders in both LNGB projects and equivalent future initiatives, to identify ways to provide sustained support to tackle barriers that the most marginalised girls will continue to face into the future.

Dr Asma Zubairi, who was part of the REAL Centre’s evaluation team, said: “Leave No Girl Behind did a great job of providing more holistic support than many comparable interventions. Based on feedback from the girls themselves, however, it is clear that when the support stops, the same old problems resurface. There are some profound economic and social issues at play.”

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the REAL Centre, said: “As we approach the end of the Girls’ Education Challenge, we need to consider what comes next. What Leave No Girl Behind has achieved is really impressive, but there are also lessons to learn. In particular, it is clear that we cannot just switch the support pipeline off for marginalised girls, and expect all those good results to be sustained.”

A hallmark of the LNGB projects was their holistic approach to supporting girls in both their education and livelihood journeys. Beyond improving academic skills, such as basic literacy and numeracy, they also charted a ‘pathway’ for each girl’s future: guiding them towards work opportunities, skills training, or back into formal schooling.

Girls and families were often given money or in-kind support to facilitate this. In Ghana, for instance, the families of girls resuming school received one year of financial aid; elsewhere, girls starting businesses were given start-up kits or funding.

Interviews with the girls, families and community members consistently suggested they emerged as confident, independent problem-solvers; while the life-skills training introduced them to topics such as contraception and tackling gender-based violence, of which some were previously unaware. One, speaking about the Aarambha project in Nepal, said it “taught us about contraceptive methods to not give birth to a child…. I did not know anything like that before [and] I learned it after coming to the community learning centre”.

The report identifies a ‘virtuous’ circle for many girls who entered employment because they often contributed directly to their communities through their work. In Kenya, for example, some girls who trained in tailoring ended up supplying school uniforms to their local area. This increased respect from their families and peers, which added to their overall sense of empowerment and wellbeing.

Despite these positives, there is evidence that societal attitudes remain a formidable hurdle for many of the girls to participate in education. Social expectations also diverted some from their chosen paths following the programme. Older adolescent girls, for example, were seen as too old to return to education and project facilitators noted they potentially faced ridicule if they tried.

In addition, not all girls were able to pursue pathways that matched their preferences. About one-quarter of girls who pursued work-related pathways had originally expressed a preference for formal education but were dissuaded from pursuing it. Moreover, many of the girls following a work-related pathway were pushed towards a limited list of occupations deemed ‘appropriate’ for women, such as tailoring and hairdressing.

The report cites the case of Ayaan, a 20-year-old mother from Kenya who had originally dropped out of primary school. After joining an LNGB programme, Ayaan wanted to study chemistry, but was considered too old for formal education. She then opted to train as an electrician, only for her husband to reject this as “a man’s vocation”: “They [project in Kenya] told us that only the young kids have the option to go back to school….and my husband refused me to do electrician because he said that it is for men.” Ayaan ended up opening a business selling nuts, charcoal and clothing: a success on paper, but not when measured against her own dreams.

The evaluation identifies other structural problems. Not all employers, for example, recognised the qualification girls received after graduating from the LNGB interventions, leaving some feeling “underappreciated and stuck with a useless certificate,” according to one interviewee involved in the implementation of an LNGB project in Zimbabwe.

Despite having initial financial backing, girls and families often struggled to afford school or sustain business ventures once the funding ended. In Kenya, about 20% of graduates from the training pathway remained jobless; 39% on the entrepreneurship pathway started businesses that subsequently failed. Societal prejudices sometimes intersected with this: in Kenya there were accounts of men destroying their wives’ sewing machines to stop them from working.

The report emphasises that future projects will need to collaborate closely with a wide range of stakeholders from inception. These are likely to include governments and NGOs. Such partnerships, the researchers argue, enhance the prospects of girls receiving ongoing, cross-sector support, which is essential for prolonged success.

A host of other recommendations include ensuring that future projects are of sufficient length to enable girls to master the skills they are being taught (which was not consistently true of the LNGB interventions); more comprehensive career guidance to prevent girls being limited to the same handful of occupations; and ties with microfinance to help those who start their own businesses.

“Well-structured interventions like the LNGB projects naturally draw in other entities to help marginalised girls,” Rose said. “They could do so even more strategically. A single education aid project cannot reverse societal or economic constraints by itself, but it can lay the groundwork for a broader approach sustained by others, long after the original project comes to an end.”



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Cambridge College to support care experienced teenagers

Peter Samuelson and Doug Chalmers

source: www.cam.c.uk

Care experienced children in Cambridgeshire are to receive significant support with their education and pastoral needs through a new partnership between Emmanuel College and the charity First Star Scholars UK. It will offer young care experienced people first-hand experience of a College environment to help them develop academically, personally and emotionally from Year 9 through to Year 13, helping them fulfil their potential and work towards entering higher education.

This is about us playing our part in helping the social environment that is around usDoug Chalmers

The children will be offered mentoring and will be able to visit the College on Saturdays for extra tuition in English and Maths plus extra-curricular activities. The College will also host a 3 week summer school next year (2024) with a focus on academic, as well as personal, development. In addition to the academic focus, the programme will also teach valuable life skills such as cooking and nutrition, emotional regulation and self-advocacy.

Film producer, Peter Samuelson, is the Chair and Founder of First Star Scholars UK. He was the first in his family to go to university, arriving at Emmanuel in the late 1960s. He says those in care feel they don’t have a voice and are often passed around like “cardboard boxes”. He is keen to raise expectations: “You may be carrying trauma, horrible things may have happened to you, but ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and the scholars will find a village at Emmanuel College. There are role models, there are mentors, there are tutors, there’s a community that prizes critical thinking, exploration and personal growth. That’s for you too and it’s a ladder that can help you lift yourselves up.”

The partnership will show care experienced children what it is like to live and study within a ‘Russell Group’ institution, where care leavers make up only 0.4% of the total undergraduate population, and inspire them to continue pursuing their studies in order to make the essential step from care into higher education.

Master of Emmanuel College, Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers, says “A lot of children in care simply don’t think they can get into Higher Education so this partnership is about giving these children, across Cambridgeshire, a platform from which they can aspire to go to universities like Cambridge. This isn’t about recruiting students for Emmanuel…this is about us playing our part in helping the social environment that is around us. When I was in the military, whether you were garrisoned or camped, you worked out what your local environment was like and then assessed whether you could engage with it and add value or not…we’re doing a similar thing at this College.”

A joint report by First Star Scholars UK and the independent think tank, Civitas, found that only 14% of care leavers under 19 started a university course in 2021/22 compared with 47% of non-care leavers (based on Department for Education (DfE) data). There are currently 65 care experienced students at the University of Cambridge but it’s hoped this figure will rise as a result of targeted outreach programmes and more scholarships being made available. Through its Realise project, the University runs a series of events throughout the year for young people with experience of care. 



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Cambridge University events at Being Human Festival 2023

source: www.cam.ac.uk

From the art of kiln firing and exploring Egyptian coffins to Aztec food science and an exhibition delving into the artistic, sociological and linguistic aspects of biological research into human tissues, events being held by Cambridge as part of Being Human Festival 2023 are a celebration for the humanities.

Taking place from 9-18 November 2023, Being Human is the UK’s national festival of the humanities. A celebration of humanities research through public engagement, it is led by the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, and works in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy to support humanities public engagement across the UK.

The theme for 2023 is Rhyme or Reason and researchers to think about rhyme or reason, or rhyme and reason, in relation to their research, and to key anniversaries in 2023.

Events taking place at the University of Cambridge are:

Building a Potter’s Kiln (11 November 2023, 12pm-4pm)

Interested in pottery and traditional crafts? Come and witness kiln-building in action at the Fitzwilliam Museum. Led by renown ceramicist and scholar Dr Abbas Akbari (University of Kashan), a group of volunteers will build a wood-fired pottery kiln on the Museum’s North Lawn, which will be fired in a series of public events over the course of the following week.

Learn from researchers about medieval Iranian ceramics and visit the Fitzwilliam’s outstanding Islamic collection. Drop-in event, no booking required. Please note that this event is weather-dependent.

Shine! Painting in Lustre (12 November 2023, 2pm-4pm)

Join renowned ceramicist and scholar Dr Abbas Akbari (University of Kashan) in a small-group workshop on decorating ceramics with metallic, lustre paints following medieval Iranian designs. In the following week, you will be able to witness the firing of your ceramic artwork during a series of public events at the Museum.

Lustre Firing at the Fitz (14/16 November 2023, 11am-2pm, 15 November 2023, 2pm-4pm, 17 November 2023, 11am-1pm)

Interested in pottery and traditional crafts? Witness the firing of lustre-painted ceramics in a traditional brick kiln on the Fitzwilliam Museum’s lawn. Led by renowned ceramicist and scholar Dr Abbas Akbari (University of Kashan), this event is part of a week of activities inspired by Medieval Iranian ceramics.

Learn from researchers about our latest discoveries and visit the Museum’s outstanding Islamic art collection. This event is drop-in with no booking required. Please note that this event is weather-dependent.

Frenemy (My Algorithm and Me) (18 November 2023, 10am-5pm)

Frenemy (My Algorithm and Me) is a short film made by Josh Vyrtz, an experimental artist film-maker, and Isabelle Higgins, a sociologist at the University of Cambridge.

The film explores the impact of social media algorithms on young people’s everyday lives, providing fresh perspectives on social media inequalities. Come and watch the film throughout the day (10:00-17:00) and discuss the idea of ‘algorithmic self-defence’ with its creators. Or join a one-hour interactive screening (15:00-16:00) with a panel of experts, which will challenge attendees to reclaim power and autonomy over their social media use.

Children (over 8 years old) and young people are very welcome to attend.

age is an artist’s book created using dos-a-dos binding to tell two stories simultaneously. It includes a narrative literature review of representations of human developmental biology in popular media during the 20th century and presents insights from interviews with current developmental biologists.

The Newspaper Dance (18 November 2023, 11:30am-12:30pm)

This dance theatre work responds to the question of how Indian classical dance replicates social and religious hierarchies in its practice and performance. The performance attempts to bridge the gap between research and practice, and uses dance-theatre to embody the questions my research raises.

Exploring Ancient Egyptian Coffins (18 November 2023, 10:30am-5:30pm)

Come along to discover research from the Fitzwilliam Museum Coffins’ Project, including investigations into the making and meaning of Egyptian coffins, and the complex questions posed by ancient reuse of them.

There’ll be table-top displays of real objects and materials to discuss, and hands-on activities using replica ancient woodworking tools and making and using rush pens and brushes to try out Egyptian painting techniques. Activities will be suitable for all ages.

The event is run in collaboration with Egyptology at Christ’s College, Cambridge and the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge and is supported by the Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship scheme.

The Power and the Limits of ‘Voice’ (18 November 2023, 1pm-2pm)

As part of this year’s Being Human Festival, Dr Kelly Fagan Robinson from the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge gives everyone the opportunity to tell their stories about things that matter to them as individuals in ways they may not have encountered before. By taking part, each person will be contributing to a pilot research skills programme which teaches people to use ethnographic methods to shape their stories in more legible ways.

This activity will:

Introduce everyone taking part to anthropology (the study of what it is to be human) and introduce each participant to a creative autoethnographic method

Start conversations about values, inequalities and potential for transformation in the world around us

Use images, collage, photos and story-telling to create unique self-life-maps that tell the stories of who each of us are!

This activity is aimed at children and families and curious primary and secondary school teachers! This is a drop-in activity and booking is not required.

Their Future, Our Action: Being Human Is Powerful (18 November 2023, 2:30pm-3:30pm)

The Centre for Resilience and Sustainable Development (CRSD) at the University of Cambridge aims to cultivate sustainable, equitable, and resilient futures by bringing together a wide range of people, as diverse as heads of state to school children, to create solutions to the world’s most complex challenges.

This workshop, open to young people and adults, will explore how different groups can work together to design a successful finance project for young people living in small developing countries. 

Shaping Memories with Seeds: Aztec Food Science and Edible Archives (18 November 2023, 10:30am-3:30pm)

Come along and explore the edible-arts of Mexico! Discover the importance of Indigenous sciences, art, linguistics and sustainable food technologies, whilst learning to shape and be shaped by Mexico’s distinct cultural traditions.

You’ll be introduced to the food history of Mexico’s Nahuas (commonly the ‘Aztecs’), namely the material traditions associated with amaranth plants, seeds and seed dough. Amaranth seed dough was (and still is) inextricably linked to the dynamic ethnic and religious makeup of Mexico.

This fun, hands-on activity will include designing and decorating an edible mnemonic device based on leading research on Mesoamerican learning techniques, archaeology and art history.

This is a family-friendly event, particularly aimed at young, school-age children.



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Cambridge and Google partner to facilitate AI research

Research underway in the Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence

source: www.cam.ac.uk

The University of Cambridge and Google are building on their long-standing partnership with a multi-year research collaboration agreement and a Google grant for the University’s new Centre for Human-Inspired AI to support progress in responsible AI that is inspired by and benefits people. 

The new multi-year research agreement creates the potential for researchers and scientists from Google and the University to more closely collaborate on foundational AI research projects in areas of shared interest across a range of disciplines, including climate and sustainability, and AI ethics and safety. 

Google has also become the first funding partner for the university’s Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence (CHIA), led by Professor Anna Korhonen, Professor Per Ola Kristensson and Dr. John Suckling, bringing together researchers and experts from computer science, engineering and multiple disciplines to develop AI that is grounded in human values and benefits humanity. Google’s unrestricted grant is helping enable the Centre’s AI research in areas like responsible AI, human-centred robotics, human-machine interaction, healthcare, economic sustainability and climate change. The donation is also funding students from underrepresented groups to carry out PhDs within the CHIA to help broaden diversity in the AI research community. 

The expanded partnership builds on years of collaboration between Google Research, Google DeepMind and the University of Cambridge. Google provides funding for academic research, facilitates collaboration between faculty and Google researchers, and supports exceptional computer science students through its PhD Fellowship Programme. Google DeepMind funds scholarships for students from underrepresented backgrounds studying AI-related fields, as well as a postdoctoral Fellowship, to help build a stronger and more inclusive AI community. Google DeepMind also endowed the first DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology to help drive its machine learning and artificial intelligence research.

Matt Brittin, President of Google EMEA and University of Cambridge alumnus, commented: “AI has huge potential to benefit people across the world – whether it’s through making daily life that bit easier, or by tackling some of society’s biggest challenges. It’s vital that we work together to seize this opportunity. By collaborating with one of our world-leading British academic institutions, we can enable AI research that is bold, responsible and designed to meet the needs of people across the country. This partnership also reaffirms Google’s commitment to the UK as a global AI and technology leader.”

Jessica Montgomery, Director of ai@cam, the University of Cambridge’s flagship mission on artificial intelligence, commented: “The University of Cambridge can be an engine for AI innovation and a steward of advancements in this exciting field. Translating advances in AI to benefits for science, citizens, and society requires interdisciplinary research that is deeply connected to real-word needs. The research collaboration agreement announced today will support research activities across the University. We want to leverage the world-leading expertise found across the University to enable exciting new advances in responsible AI.”

Michelle Donelan, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, added: “Artificial intelligence can offer us enormous opportunities – growing the economy, creating new jobs and making lives longer, healthier and happier for British people. To seize those opportunities, we must bring together insights from business and academia to encourage the safe and responsible development of AI. That is why we are welcoming the partnership which Google and the University of Cambridge have announced today.

As we prepare for next month’s AI Safety Summit, this partnership shows that the UK – home to world-leading research facilities as well as some of the biggest tech companies in the world – is perfectly placed to support the innovation that underpins this critical technology.”

Professor Anna Korhonen, Director of CHIA, said: “Here at the Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence our researchers are dedicated to making sure that people are put at the very heart of new developments in AI. As our first funding partner, Google has been with us from the start of our journey, helping enable the breakthrough interdisciplinary research that we do. Partnerships like this – between academia and industry – will continue to be vital for the successful development of human-inspired AI.”

Zoubin Ghahramani, VP, Research, Google DeepMind is a Professor of Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge and has spearheaded this expanded partnership. He commented: “Google and the University of Cambridge share a deep commitment to developing AI responsibly, which means grounding innovation in scientific research,  human values and our AI principles. We’re excited by CHIA’s potential to set new standards in responsible and human-centric AI development,  and unlock AI discoveries that could benefit everyone.”

A recent report, commissioned by Google and compiled by Public First, quantified the opportunity AI presents to enhance the lives and businesses of everyone across the UK. It found AI-powered innovation could create over £400 billion in economic value for the UK economy by 2030. To ensure everyone can tap into that potential, regardless of whether they’re in higher education, Google has launched free training to offer people and businesses practical skills and knowledge to capture the benefits of AI. 
 


How AI can help people with motor disabilities — like my cousin

“My cousin was the victim of a brutal attack, and left with life-changing injuries – but with AI technology, we aim to empower people like her.”

Aleesha Hamid, a PhD student at the Cambridge Centre for Human-Inspired AI, blogs on the Google website about why her research aims to make a real difference to people like her cousin, who was left with a traumatic brain injury and uses technology to communicate.  



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Strategy unveiled to boost innovation in Cambridge

source: www.cam.ac.uk

 An ambitious new strategy to nurture and grow its innovation ecosystem has been unveiled at Cambridge summit.

The Innovate Cambridge Summit saw over 400 leaders from across the civic, business and academic working communities to support the science and technology cluster to maintain its position as a world leader amid fierce international competition.

Cambridge has evolved into a global innovation hub over the last 30 years, with over 5,500 knowledge-intensive businesses generating revenues exceeding £20bn annually and 23 billion-dollar unicorn companies born in the city. The University of Cambridge is also the number one university in the world for producing successful tech founders, ahead of Harvard and MIT, with over 500 alumni founders raising more than $10 million in funding.

Recognising this, the city and its innovation ecosystem is now presented with a generational opportunity to maximise economic and social return. International benchmarking indicates that Cambridge can do more to enhance its position in the global innovation landscape.

This new home-grown innovation strategy, which has had input from 200 organisations, including Cambridge Enterprise, the University of Cambridge, Cambridge Innovation Capital, AstraZeneca, Microsoft, ARM, Darktrace, Cambridge City Council, and Cambridge County Council and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority will propel the ecosystem towards a groundbreaking future.

In the past twelve months, the Cambridge ecosystem has seen significant collaboration, with over 200 organisations endorsing an Innovation Charter and extensive consultations involving more than 500 individuals to craft an innovation strategy. The culmination of these efforts, Innovate Cambridge, seeks to leverage the city’s unique position as a driver of Britain’s growth, fostering collaboration, and catalysing innovation for the benefit of local communities and the broader UK.

In pursuit of this vision, Innovate Cambridge has identified three strategic goals:

  • An innovation ecosystem firing on all cylinders. Innovate Cambridge envisions improved health and social care, optimised energy use, and enhanced agricultural outcomes through world-leading life sciences research and AI applications. The focus will be on creating a green growth strategy, fostering economic growth, and supporting social infrastructure.
  • Ensuring the innovation ecosystem provides value and impact for the local community. Innovate Cambridge aims to increase collaboration within and beyond the region, formalising partnerships with other innovation hubs and economic centres. The initiative strives to deliver high-quality employment and training opportunities while ensuring benefits extend beyond geographical limits.
  • Forming partnerships with other regions and collaborators to drive scale and deliver social and economic benefits. By 2035, Innovate Cambridge aims to achieve significant economic, social, and environmental impact through collaborations and partnerships. Practical infrastructure issues, such as water scarcity and transportation, are addressed in conjunction with local government and Cambridge Ahead.

“Innovation is critical to local, national and global prosperity and central to the UK’s economic success. Cambridge is the UK’s leading research-based innovation ecosystem. A recent analysis found that spinouts and start-ups associated with the University contributed over £18bn to the UK economy and there are many other companies within the Cambridge ecosystem without a direct connection to the University that make a further significant contribution.” Professor Andy Neely OBE, Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge

“The City Council has an important placemaking and leadership role for the whole city. We want Cambridge to be an even better place to live, work and study, and ensure the city maintains its status as a global innovation hub. Cambridge also has significant challenges around health inequalities, housing affordability, and life changes for disadvantaged young people. That’s why it’s vital successful businesses, innovators, and entrepreneurs that have benefited from the unique, nurturing, innovation environment in Cambridge to give back to the city in a more tangible way.” Robert Pollock, Chief Executive, Cambridge City Council

“This strategy represents a pivotal moment for the innovation ecosystem in Cambridge. The collaboration of over 200 organisations has yielded a strategic roadmap that provides a shared vision for Cambridge as a global innovation hub. This initiative, rooted in inclusivity and sustainability, will drive positive economic and social impacts for the local community. Cambridge Enterprise is proud to be part of this ambitious endeavour, and we look forward to fostering groundbreaking discoveries and translating them into world-changing businesses.” Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, Chief Executive, Cambridge Enterprise

“Innovation is critical to local, national and global prosperity and central to the wider UK growth agenda, and Cambridge remains the most intensive science and technological cluster in the world.  It is an ecosystem where companies have the potential to go from lab to market quicker than anywhere else. We excel in life sciences, deep tech, and interdisciplinary research; and the city is home to a blend of start-ups and global leaders. The fact that so many of those stakeholders and businesses have now come up with an inclusive, forward-looking plan to ensure the city continues to innovate, compete, and deliver impact on a global scale, fills me with enormous pride.” Michael Anstey, Partner, Cambridge Innovation Capital

News release first published by Cambridge Enterprise



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UK needs AI legislation to create trust so companies can ‘plug AI into British economy’ – report

Data Tunnel

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Legislation regulating AI safety and transparency is needed, say researchers, so British industry and education can put resources into AI development with confidence.

The UK can become a global leader in actually plugging these AI technologies into the economyDiane Coyle

The British government should offer tax breaks for businesses developing AI-powered products and services, or applying AI to their existing operations, to “unlock the UK’s potential for augmented productivity”, according to a new University of Cambridge report.

Researchers argue that the UK currently lacks the computing capacity and capital required to build “generative” machine learning models fast enough to compete with US companies such as Google, Microsoft or Open AI.

Instead, they call for a UK focus on leveraging these new AI systems for real-world applications – such as developing new diagnostic products and addressing the shortage of software engineers, for example – which could provide a major boost to the British economy.

However, the researchers caution that without new legislation to ensure the UK has solid legal and ethical AI regulation, such plans could falter. British industries and the public may struggle to trust emerging AI platforms such as ChatGPT enough to invest time and money into skilling up.

The policy report is a collaboration between Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and DemocracyBennett Institute for Public Policy, and ai@cam: the University’s flagship initiative on artificial intelligence.

“Generative AI will change the nature of how things are produced, just as what occurred with factory assembly lines in the 1910s or globalised supply chains at the turn of the millennium,” said Dame Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy. “The UK can become a global leader in actually plugging these AI technologies into the economy.”

Prof Gina Neff, Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, said: “A new Bill that fosters confidence in AI by legislating for data protection, intellectual property and product safety is vital groundwork for using this technology to increase UK productivity.”

Generative AI uses algorithms trained on giant datasets to output original high-quality text, images, audio, or video at ferocious speed and scale. The text-based ChatGPT dominated headlines this year. Other examples include Midjourney, which can conjure imagery in any different style in seconds.

Networked grids – or clusters – of computing hardware called Graphics Processing Units (GPU) are required to handle the vast quantities of data that hone these machine-learning models. For example, ChatGPT is estimated to cost $40 million a month in computing alone. In the spring of this year, the UK chancellor announced £100 million for a “Frontier AI Taskforce” to scope out the creation of home-grown AI to rival the likes of Google Bard.

However, the report points out that the supercomputer announced by the UK chancellor is unlikely to be online until 2026, while none of the big three US tech companies – Amazon, Microsoft or Google – have GPU clusters in the UK.

“The UK has no companies big enough to invest meaningfully in foundation model development,” said report co-author Sam Gilbert. “State spending on technology is modest compared to China and the US, as we have seen in the UK chip industry.”

As such, the UK should use its strengths in fin-tech, cybersecurity and health-tech to build software – the apps, tools and interfaces – that harnesses AI for everyday use, says the report.

“Generative AI has been shown to speed up coding by some 55%, which could help with the UK’s chronic developer shortage,” said Gilbert. “In fact, this type of AI can even help non-programmers to build sophisticated software.”

Moreover, the UK has world-class research universities that could drive progress in tackling AI stumbling blocks: from the cooling of data centres to the detection of AI-generated misinformation.

At the moment, however, UK organisations lack incentives to comply with responsible AI. “The UK’s current approach to regulating generative AI is based on a set of vague and voluntary principles that nod at security and transparency,” said report co-author Dr Ann Kristin Glenster.

“The UK will only be able to realise the economic benefits of AI if the technology can be trusted, and that can only be ensured through meaningful legislation and regulation.”

Along with new AI laws, the report suggests a series of tax incentives, such as an enhanced Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, to increase the supply of capital to AI start-ups, as well as tax credits for all businesses including generative AI in their operations. Challenge prizes could be launched to identify bottom-up uses of generative AI from within organisations.



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Scientists begin building AI for scientific discovery using tech behind ChatGPT

Network and data connection on a dark blue background.

source: www.cam.ac.uk

An international team of scientists, including from the University of Cambridge, have launched a new research collaboration that will leverage the same technology behind ChatGPT to build an AI-powered tool for scientific discovery.

While ChatGPT deals in words and sentences, the team’s AI will learn from numerical data and physics simulations from across scientific fields to aid scientists in modelling everything from supergiant stars to the Earth’s climate.

The team launched the initiative, called Polymathic AI earlier this week, alongside the publication of a series of related scientific papers on the arXiv.org open access repository.

“This will completely change how people use AI and machine learning in science,” said Polymathic AI principal investigator Shirley Ho, a group leader at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City.

The idea behind Polymathic AI “is similar to how it’s easier to learn a new language when you already know five languages,” said Ho.

Starting with a large, pre-trained model, known as a foundation model, can be both faster and more accurate than building a scientific model from scratch. That can be true even if the training data isn’t obviously relevant to the problem at hand.

“It’s been difficult to carry out academic research on full-scale foundation models due to the scale of computing power required,” said co-investigator Miles Cranmer, from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and Institute of Astronomy. “Our collaboration with Simons Foundation has provided us with unique resources to start prototyping these models for use in basic science, which researchers around the world will be able to build from – it’s exciting.”

“Polymathic AI can show us commonalities and connections between different fields that might have been missed,” said co-investigator Siavash Golkar, a guest researcher at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics. “In previous centuries, some of the most influential scientists were polymaths with a wide-ranging grasp of different fields. This allowed them to see connections that helped them get inspiration for their work. With each scientific domain becoming more and more specialised, it is increasingly challenging to stay at the forefront of multiple fields. I think this is a place where AI can help us by aggregating information from many disciplines.”

The Polymathic AI team includes researchers from the Simons Foundation and its Flatiron Institute, New York University, the University of Cambridge, Princeton University and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The team includes experts in physics, astrophysics, mathematics, artificial intelligence and neuroscience.

Scientists have used AI tools before, but they’ve primarily been purpose-built and trained using relevant data. “Despite rapid progress of machine learning in recent years in various scientific fields, in almost all cases, machine learning solutions are developed for specific use cases and trained on some very specific data,” said co-investigator Francois Lanusse, a cosmologist at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in France. “This creates boundaries both within and between disciplines, meaning that scientists using AI for their research do not benefit from information that may exist, but in a different format, or in a different field entirely.”

Polymathic AI’s project will learn using data from diverse sources across physics and astrophysics (and eventually fields such as chemistry and genomics, its creators say) and apply that multidisciplinary savvy to a wide range of scientific problems. The project will “connect many seemingly disparate subfields into something greater than the sum of their parts,” said project member Mariel Pettee, a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“How far we can make these jumps between disciplines is unclear,” said Ho. “That’s what we want to do — to try and make it happen.”

ChatGPT has well-known limitations when it comes to accuracy (for instance, the chatbot says 2,023 times 1,234 is 2,497,582 rather than the correct answer of 2,496,382). Polymathic AI’s project will avoid many of those pitfalls, Ho said, by treating numbers as actual numbers, not just characters on the same level as letters and punctuation. The training data will also use real scientific datasets that capture the physics underlying the cosmos.

Transparency and openness are a big part of the project, Ho said. “We want to make everything public. We want to democratise AI for science in such a way that, in a few years, we’ll be able to serve a pre-trained model to the community that can help improve scientific analyses across a wide variety of problems and domains.”



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imulations of ‘backwards time travel’ can improve scientific experiments

Digital generated image of abstract glowing tech data tunnel

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Physicists have shown that simulating models of hypothetical time travel can solve experimental problems that appear impossible to solve using standard physics.

We are not proposing a time travel machine, but rather a deep dive into the fundamentals of quantum mechanicsDavid Arvidsson-Shukur

If gamblers, investors and quantum experimentalists could bend the arrow of time, their advantage would be significantly higher, leading to significantly better outcomes. 

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have shown that by manipulating entanglement – a feature of quantum theory that causes particles to be intrinsically linked – they can simulate what could happen if one could travel backwards in time. So that gamblers, investors and quantum experimentalists could, in some cases, retroactively change their past actions and improve their outcomes in the present.

Whether particles can travel backwards in time is a controversial topic among physicists, even though scientists have previously simulated models of how such spacetime loops could behave if they did exist. By connecting their new theory to quantum metrology, which uses quantum theory to make highly sensitive measurements, the Cambridge team has shown that entanglement can solve problems that otherwise seem impossible. The study appears in the journal Physical Review Letters.

“Imagine that you want to send a gift to someone: you need to send it on day one to make sure it arrives on day three,” said lead author David Arvidsson-Shukur, from the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory. “However, you only receive that person’s wish list on day two. So, in this chronology-respecting scenario, it’s impossible for you to know in advance what they will want as a gift and to make sure you send the right one.

“Now imagine you can change what you send on day one with the information from the wish list received on day two. Our simulation uses quantum entanglement manipulation to show how you could retroactively change your previous actions to ensure the final outcome is the one you want.”

The simulation is based on quantum entanglement, which consists of strong correlations that quantum particles can share and classical particles—those governed by everyday physics—cannot.

The particularity of quantum physics is that if two particles are close enough to each other to interact, they can stay connected even when separated. This is the basis of quantum computing – the harnessing of connected particles to perform computations too complex for classical computers.

“In our proposal, an experimentalist entangles two particles,” said co-author Nicole Yunger Halpern, researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland. “The first particle is then sent to be used in an experiment. Upon gaining new information, the experimentalist manipulates the second particle to effectively alter the first particle’s past state, changing the outcome of the experiment.”

“The effect is remarkable, but it happens only one time out of four!” said Arvidsson-Shukur. “In other words, the simulation has a 75% chance of failure. But the good news is that you know if you have failed. If we stay with our gift analogy, one out of four times, the gift will be the desired one (for example a pair of trousers), another time it will be a pair of trousers but in the wrong size, or the wrong colour, or it will be a jacket.”

To give their model relevance to technologies, the theorists connected it to quantum metrology. In a common quantum metrology experiment, photons—small particles of light—are shone onto a sample of interest and then registered with a special type of camera. If this experiment is to be efficient, the photons must be prepared in a certain way before they reach the sample. The researchers have shown that even if they learn how to best prepare the photons only after the photons have reached the sample, they can use simulations of time travel to retroactively change the original photons.

To counteract the high chance of failure, the theorists propose to send a huge number of entangled photons, knowing that some will eventually carry the correct, updated information. Then they would use a filter to ensure that the right photons pass to the camera, while the filter rejects the rest of the ‘bad’ photons.

“Consider our earlier analogy about gifts,” said co-author Aidan McConnell, who carried out this research during his master’s degree at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, and is now a PhD student at ETH, Zürich. “Let’s say sending gifts is inexpensive and we can send numerous parcels on day one. On day two we know which gift we should have sent. By the time the parcels arrive on day three, one out of every four gifts will be correct, and we select these by telling the recipient which deliveries to throw away.”

“That we need to use a filter to make our experiment work is actually pretty reassuring,” said Arvidsson-Shukur. “The world would be very strange if our time-travel simulation worked every time. Relativity and all the theories that we are building our understanding of our universe on would be out of the window.

“We are not proposing a time travel machine, but rather a deep dive into the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. These simulations do not allow you to go back and alter your past, but they do allow you to create a better tomorrow by fixing yesterday’s problems today.”

This work was supported by the Sweden-America Foundation, the Lars Hierta Memorial Foundation, Girton College, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).


Reference:
David R. M. Arvidsson-Shukur, Aidan G. McConnell, and Nicole Yunger Halpern, ‘Nonclassical advantage in metrology established via quantum simulations of hypothetical closed timelike curves’, Phys. Rev. Lett. 2023. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.150202



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Message from the Vice-Chancellor

Old Schools, University of Cambridge

source: www.cam.ac.uk

For many at our University, the last few days, following the appalling attacks by Hamas last Saturday, have been extremely difficult. We are deeply saddened by the loss of innocent lives in Israel, the impact of the escalating violence in Gaza, and the fate of hostages. We share the concerns of our students and staff over the fear and uncertainty faced by their loved ones in Israel and Palestine.

As a University, over recent days we have been focused on our people, offering support and help where it is needed. On Tuesday I wrote to students, staff and alumni who signed an open letter. We have reached out to Jewish and Palestinian groups and have had the opportunity to meet with student representatives from these groups. We will continue to engage with them and with other members of the Jewish and Palestinian communities at Cambridge going forward.

Many of us are affected in direct and indirect ways by this conflict. This is a time for mutual care and support in our community, looking after each other, and helping those around us who are upset or fearful.

We are grateful to those who have already shared their own experiences and feelings in light of terrible events, and we encourage all of those affected by the events in Israel, Gaza, and the wider Middle East to look to the University community for support. We stand with them in solidarity. 

You can find sources of support at this time using the link below.

Yours,

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor

Sources of support

See sources of support for those affected by recent events in Israel, Gaza and the Middle East >



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New milestone for specialist children’s hospital in the East of England

Artist's impression of the entrance to the future Cambridge Children’s Hospital

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Cambridge Children’s Hospital, which will be the first specialist children’s hospital for the East of England, has been given the green light to proceed to the final stage of its business case development. This means that pre-construction works can begin on the site of the new hospital, opposite the Rosie Maternity Hospital on Robinson Way, early next year.

Together we can detect childhood disease early or prevent it altogether, personalise health care and deliver it closer to homeDavid Rowitch

The Project had its Outline Business Case approved in principle by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care on 29 September 2023.  With this approval, which is subject to a review of the Project’s capital funding in April 2024, work can now commence on the Full Business Case for the Project.

The hospital, which was awarded planning permission in March 2022, is being built on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, but will care for children and young people across the whole of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

It will be the first hospital designed to truly provide mental and physical health care together, delivered by staff who are trained in both. While the hospital will be built in Cambridge it will act as a central hub, working with services all over the East of England to provide care and support for children who may never visit the hospital itself. 

Dr Rob Heuschkel, Cambridge Children’s Hospital Clinical Lead for Physical Health said: “This is fantastic news for children across the East of England – the only region without a specialist children’s hospital.

“We know there is widespread support across the East of England for this Hospital – from children and their families to our regional colleagues and our regional MPs. Now is the time for us to all work together to turn our plans into reality. I can’t wait to get started on the next stage of this Project. “

The government committed £100m to Cambridge Children’s Hospital in 2018, under the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership scheme, and the project is on track to meet its target of an additional £100m of philanthropy and fundraising.  

Health Minister Lord Markham said: “We are investing in over 70 major new upgrades of NHS facilities across the country so patients can access high quality care in state-of-the-art hospitals, both now and in the years to come. I’m pleased Cambridge Children’s Hospital is now starting on the final stage of its business case with construction planned to begin next year.

“Backed by £100 million of government funding, this hospital will be the first specialist children’s hospital for the East of England and will bring mental and physical healthcare services together to benefit thousands of young people.”

Dr Cathy Walsh, Cambridge Children’s Hospital Clinical Lead for Mental Health, said: “There’s a long way still to go but this is an exciting moment in our journey to building a truly integrated children’s hospital.

“Our young people urgently need a new type of care, delivered by staff who are trained in both mental and physical health care. Cambridge Children’s Hospital will completely transform the future of healthcare for children and their families from across this region.”

The hospital will also house a University of Cambridge world-class research facility focussed on detecting and preventing childhood illness.

Professor David Rowitch, Head of the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Children’s Hospital Research Lead, said: “Cambridge Children’s Hospital will use cutting-edge innovations in genomic science to detect origins of physical and mental health conditions and develop a new model of preventive medicine in paediatrics. We will foster game-changing breakthroughs in life sciences research that will have an impact across the globe.

“Together we can detect childhood disease early or prevent it altogether, personalise health care and deliver it closer to home.”

Members of Cambridge Children’s Hospital Network, which is made up of children, young people and parents from across the region, have been a crucial part of designing the future hospital, and helping to shape how the facility might look and feel like. 

Sarah Cobb, 19 from near Cambridge, has multiple disabilities and is visually impaired. She has been involved in the Project for a number of years. She said: “As someone with lifelong health conditions, who’s spent a lot of time in hospital as a child, a teenager and now a young adult, I’m delighted that Cambridge Children’s Hospital has reached this brilliant milestone. 

“I feel really honoured to be part of such an inspirational project. This hospital means so much to me and will make such a difference to the mental and physical health of children and young people in future.”

Work continues on finalising the costs and remaining funding streams for this brand new hospital. We will now start developing the final stage of the business case for Cambridge Children’s Hospital’s– the Full Business Case.


About Cambridge Children’s Hospital 

Cambridge Children’s Hospital will be the first hospital designed to truly provide mental and physical health care together, delivered by staff who are trained in both.

It is the first specialist children’s hospital for the East of England, the only region in the UK without one. 

The hospital will fully integrate physical and mental healthcare services under one roof to provide a whole new way of caring for children and young people aged 0-19, including those with cancer. 

Cambridge Children’s Hospital will be a national exemplar. Housing University of Cambridge research institutes focused on the prevention and early diagnosis of disease, the hospital will deliver game-changing advances in life sciences research. 

The hospital will be built on Europe’s leading life sciences campus, the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, and is being co-designed with the help of young people, families and healthcare professionals. 

Established by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge, the hospital is a partnership which brings together clinical expertise and world-leading knowledge.

The Campaign for Cambridge Children’s Hospital, a partnership between Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), Head to Toe Charity and the University of Cambridge (CUDAR), is committed to raising £100 million from philanthropy and fundraising.



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Latest Gaia data release reveals rare lenses, cluster cores and unforeseen science

Gaia view of Omega Centauri

source: www.cam.ac.uk

The European Space Agency’s Gaia mission has released a goldmine of knowledge about our galaxy and beyond. Among other findings, the star surveyor has surpassed its planned potential to reveal half a million new and faint stars in a massive cluster, identified over 380 possible cosmic lenses, and pinpointed the positions of more than 150,000 asteroids within the Solar System.

This release represents but a small taste of the riches to be revealed with the publication of the next full release, Gaia DR4Nicholas Walton

Gaia is mapping our galaxy and beyond in multi-dimensional detail, completing the most accurate stellar census ever. The mission is painting a detailed picture of our place in the Universe, enabling us to better understand the diverse objects within it.

The mission’s latest data release provides new and improved insights into the space around us. The release also brings findings that go far beyond what Gaia was initially designed to discover and digs deep into our cosmic history.

“This focused product data release will open up new insights across astronomy, from the precise orbits of asteroids in our Solar System, to quasar discovery in the distant cosmos,” said Dr Nicholas Walton from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, lead of the UK Gaia Project team and ESA Gaia Science Team member. “It demonstrates the breadth of science enabled by Gaia, and the role of Cambridge and UK Gaia teams in the creation of these data products. This release represents but a small taste of the riches to be revealed with the publication of the next full release, Gaia DR4.”

So – what’s new from Gaia?

Half a million new stars: Gaia’s observing mode extended to unlock cluster cores

Gaia’s third data release (DR3) contained data on over 1.8 billion stars, building a pretty complete view of the Milky Way and beyond. However, there remained gaps in our mapping. Gaia had not yet fully explored areas of sky that were especially densely packed with stars, leaving these comparatively unexplored – and overlooking stars shining less brightly than their many neighbours.

Globular clusters are a key example of this. These clusters are some of the oldest objects in the Universe, making them especially valuable to scientists looking at our cosmic past. Unfortunately, their bright cores, chock-full of stars, can overwhelm telescopes attempting to get a clear view. As such, they remain missing pieces in our maps of the Universe.

To patch the gaps in our maps, Gaia selected Omega Centauri, the largest globular cluster that can be seen from Earth. Rather than just focusing on individual stars, as it typically would, Gaia enabled a special mode to truly map a wider patch of sky surrounding the cluster’s core every time the cluster came into view.

“In Omega Centauri, we discovered over half a million new stars Gaia hadn’t seen before – from just one cluster!” says lead author Katja Weingrill of the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), Germany, and a member of the Gaia collaboration.

“Through a new use of one of Gaia’s specialised engineering modes, we have been able to generate an imaging catalogue of some of the densest stellar fields in our galaxy,” said Dr Dafydd Wyn Evans, lead of the Gaia photometric development team. “This is enabling us to provide a more complete view of all components of the Milky Way, including the cores of Globular Clusters, some of the oldest structures in our Galaxy.”

This finding not only meets but actually exceeds Gaia’s planned potential. The team used an observing mode designed to ensure that all of Gaia’s instruments are running smoothly.

“The Gaia Sky Mapper images required the development of a new processing pipeline to measure the accurate brightness of the hundreds of thousands faint stars not seen by Gaia before,” said Dr Francesca De Angeli, lead of Gaia’s Photometric Data Processing Centre in Cambridge. “This rich data probes regions of the sky previously unseen by Gaia, and fills in important gaps in earlier data releases.”

The new stars revealed in Omega Centauri mark one of the most crowded regions explored by Gaia so far.

Gaia is currently exploring eight more regions in this way, with the results to be included in Gaia Data Release 4. These data will help astronomers to truly understand what is happening within these cosmic building blocks, a crucial step for scientists aiming to confirm the age of our galaxy, locate its centre, figure out whether it has gone through any past collisions, verify how stars change through their lifetimes, constrain our models of galactic evolution, and ultimately infer the possible age of the Universe itself.

Looking for lenses: Gaia the accidental cosmologist

While Gaia was not designed for cosmology, its new findings peer deep into the distant Universe, hunting for elusive and exciting objects that hold clues to some of humanity’s biggest questions about the cosmos: gravitational lenses.

Gravitational lensing occurs when the image of a faraway object becomes warped by a disturbing mass – a star or galaxy, for instance – sitting between us and the object. This intermediate mass acts as a giant magnifying glass, or lens, that can amplify the brightness of light and cast multiple images of the faraway source onto the sky. These rare configurations hold immense scientific value, revealing clues about the earliest days of the Universe.

The team identified the candidates from an extensive list of possible quasars (including those from Gaia DR3). Five of the possible lenses are potential Einstein crosses, rare lensed systems with four different image components shaped like a cross. (See 12 such configurations discovered by Gaia in 2021.)

Finding lensed quasars is challenging. A lensed system’s constituent images can clump together on the sky in misleading ways, and most are very far away, making them faint and tricky to spot.

Extending Gaia’s value into cosmology brings synergy with ESA’s Euclid mission, recently launched on its quest to explore the dark Universe. While both focus on different parts of the cosmos – Euclid on mapping billions of galaxies, Gaia on mapping billions of stars – the lensed quasars discovered by Gaia can be used to guide future exploration with Euclid.

Asteroids, stacked starlight and pulsating stars

Other papers published today offer further insight into the space around us, and the diverse and sometimes mysterious objects within it.

One reveals more about 156,823 of the asteroids identified as part of Gaia DR3. The new dataset pinpoints the positions of these rocky bodies over nearly double the previous timespan, making most of their orbits – based on Gaia observations alone – 20 times more precise. In the future, Gaia DR4 will complete the set and include comets, planetary satellites and double the number of asteroids, improving our knowledge of the small bodies in nearby space.

Another paper maps the disc of the Milky Way by tracing weak signals seen in starlight, faint imprints of the gas and dust that floats between the stars. The Gaia team stacked six million spectra to study these signals, forming a dataset of weak features that have never been measured in such a large sample. The dataset will hopefully allow scientists to narrow down the source of these signals, which the team suspects to be a complex organic molecule. Knowing more about where this signal comes from helps us to study the physical and chemical processes active throughout our galaxy, and to understand more about the material lying between stars.

Finally, a paper characterises the dynamics of 10,000 pulsating and binary red giant stars in by far the largest such database available to date. These stars were part of a catalogue of two million variable star candidates released in Gaia DR3, and are key when calculating cosmic distances, confirming stellar characteristics, and clarifying how stars evolve throughout the cosmos. The new release provides a better understanding of how these stars change over time.

“This data release further demonstrates Gaia’s broad and fundamental value – even on topics it wasn’t initially designed to address,” said Timo Prusti, Project Scientist for Gaia at ESA.

The next steps

Gaia’s previous Data Release, Gaia DR3, came on 13 June 2022. It was the most detailed survey of the Milky Way to date, and a treasure trove of data on strange ‘starquakes’, asymmetrically moving stars, stellar DNA and more. Gaia DR3 contained new and improved details for almost two billion stars in the Milky Way, and included the largest catalogues of binary stars, thousands of Solar System objects, and – more distantly and outside of our galaxy – millions of galaxies and quasars.

The mission’s next Data Release, Gaia DR4, is expected not before the end of 2025. It will build upon both Gaia DR3 and this interim focused product release to further improve our understanding of the multi-dimensional Milky Way. It will refine our knowledge of stars’ colours, positions, and movements; resolve variable and multiple star systems; identify and characterise quasars and galaxies; list exoplanet candidates; and more.

Adapted from an ESA press release.



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Young children who are close to their parents are more likely to grow up kind, helpful and ‘prosocial’

Father hugging his son

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Study using data from 10,000 people in the UK found that those who had a closer bond with their parents at age 3 tended to display more socially-desirable behaviours like kindness, empathy and generosity, by adolescence.

As children, we internalise those aspects of our relationships with our parents that are characterised by emotion, care and warmthIoannis Katsantonis

A loving bond between parents and their children early in life significantly increases the child’s tendency to be ‘prosocial’, and act with kindness and empathy towards others, research indicates.

The University of Cambridge study used data from more than 10,000 people born between 2000 and 2002 to understand the long-term interplay between our early relationships with our parents, prosociality and mental health. It is one of the first studies to look at how these characteristics interact over a long period spanning childhood and adolescence.

The researchers found that people who experienced warm and loving relationships with their parents at age three not only tended to have fewer mental health problems during early childhood and adolescence, but also displayed heightened ‘prosocial’ tendencies. This refers to socially-desirable behaviours intended to benefit others, such as kindness, empathy, helpfulness, generosity and volunteering.

Although the correlation between parent-child relationships and later prosociality needs to be verified through further research, the study points to a sizeable association. On average, it found that for every standard unit above ‘normal’ levels that a child’s closeness with their parents was higher at age three, their prosociality increased by 0.24 of a standard unit by adolescence.

Conversely, children whose early parental relationships were emotionally strained or abusive were less likely to develop prosocial habits over time. The researchers suggest this strengthens the case for developing targeted policies and support for young families within which establishing close parent-child relationships may not always be straightforward; for example, if parents are struggling with financial and work pressures and do not have much time.

The study also explored how far mental health and prosocial behaviour are fixed ‘traits’ in young people, and how far they fluctuate according to circumstances like changes at school or in personal relationships. It measured both mental health and prosociality at ages five, seven, 11, 14 and 17 in order to develop a comprehensive picture of the dynamics shaping these characteristics and how they interact.

The research was undertaken by Ioannis Katsantonis and Dr Ros McLellan, both from the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.

Katsantonis, the lead author and a doctoral researcher specialising in psychology and education, said: “Our analysis showed that after a certain age, we tend to be mentally well, or mentally unwell, and have a reasonably fixed level of resilience. Prosociality varies more and for longer, depending on our environment. A big influence appears to be our early relationship with our parents. As children, we internalise those aspects of our relationships with our parents that are characterised by emotion, care and warmth. This affects our future disposition to be kind and helpful towards others.”

The study used data from 10,700 participants in the Millennium Cohort Study, which has monitored the development of a large group of people born in the UK between 2000 and 2002. It includes survey-based information about their prosociality, ‘internalising’ mental health symptoms (such as depression and anxiety) and ‘externalising’ symptoms (such as aggression).

Further survey data provided information about how far the participants’ relationships with their parents at age three were characterised by ‘maltreatment’ (physical and verbal abuse); emotional conflict; and ‘closeness’ (warmth, security and care). Other potentially confounding factors, like ethnic background and socio-economic status, were also taken into account.

The Cambridge team then used a complex form of statistical analysis called latent state-trait-occasion modelling to understand how far the participants’ mental health symptoms and prosocial inclinations seemed to be expressing fixed personality ‘traits’ at each stage of their development. This enabled them, for example, to determine how far a child who behaved anxiously when surveyed was responding to a particular experience or set of circumstances, and how far they were just a naturally anxious child.

The study found some evidence of a link between mental health problems and prosociality. Notably, children who displayed higher than average externalising mental health symptoms at a younger age showed less prosociality than usual later. For example, for each standard unit increase above normal that a child displayed externalising mental health problems at age seven, their prosociality typically fell by 0.11 of a unit at age 11.

There was no clear evidence that the reverse applied, however. While children with greater than average prosociality generally had better mental health at any single given point in time, this did not mean their mental health improved as they got older. On the basis of this finding, the study suggests that schools’ efforts to foster prosocial behaviours may be more impactful if they are integrated into the curriculum in a sustained way, rather than being implemented in the form of one-off interventions, like anti-bullying weeks.

As well as being more prosocial, children who had closer relationships with their parents at age three also tended to have fewer symptoms of poor mental health in later childhood and adolescence.

Katsantonis said that the findings underlined the importance of cultivating strong early relationships between parents and children, which is already widely seen as critical to supporting children’s healthy development in other areas.

“So much of this comes back to parents,” Katsantonis said. “How much they can spend time with their children and respond to their needs and emotions early in life matters enormously.”

“Some may need help learning how to do that, but we should not underestimate the importance of simply giving them time. Closeness only develops with time, and for parents who are living or working in stressful and constrained circumstances, there often isn’t enough. Policies which address that, at any level, will have many benefits, including enhancing children’s mental resilience and their capacity to act positively towards others later in life.”

The findings are reported in the International Journal of Behavioural Development.



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People, climate and a national role for Cambridge are a focus of Vice-Chancellor’s first Annual Address

Vice-Chancellor Professor Debbie Prentice’s annual address to the University of Cambridge – 2023

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source: www.cam.ac.uk

Speaking at the Senate House, Professor Deborah Prentice marked the start of the academic year by delivering her first October address to the University.

Having come into office in July, she used the opportunity to share her evolving understanding of the Collegiate University and how it works. “I have found it useful to think of Cambridge as three separable entities, distinct in their goals, cultures, and modes of conduct and interrelated in their pursuit of Cambridge’s overarching mission.”

The first of these entities is Cambridge as a community of scholars, which she described as a “vibrant ecosystem”, and which she found to be “alive and well – indeed, more alive and more well here than in any other research-intensive university I know”.

The second is Cambridge as a public institution: “This Cambridge contributes around £30 billion a year to the British economy. Only last week it was ranked top in Research England’s Knowledge Exchange Framework, which measures universities’ impact on the economy and society. It generates research discoveries that shape policy and practice in every sector.”

“This is the Cambridge that, through its Press and Assessment, reaches over 100 million learners around the globe. This Cambridge welcomed the King immediately after his Coronation to the ground-breaking for the new Whittle Lab. This Cambridge is partnering to build two new hospitals on the biomedical campus and is working to define an innovation strategy for Greater Cambridge.”

The third face of Cambridge, she said, is the University as a modern organisation “that employs staff, manages the estate and the finances, runs the IT systems, staffs the committees, represents the University in professional organisations, raises funds for University endeavours, and communicates on the University’s behalf.”

“Cambridge’s sweet spot,” she concluded, “is where the aims of the scholars, the needs of society, and the capacities of the organisation align. Alignment is the key, and it cannot to be taken for granted.”

Reflecting on the year ahead, Professor Prentice was upbeat. She celebrated the UK’s readmission into the Horizon Europe, the world’s largest collaborative research programme. But much of the work of the University in the next twelve months, she said, would focus on people.  “Our people are the means and the ends of the work of a university… It is people who animate the community of scholars, and people whose imaginations and ambitions fuel the impact of the public institution.”

Acknowledging that the past few years have been challenging, she said: “We are aiming to improve pay and conditions in ways that respond to what we have been hearing from staff and are fair and equitable across the University, competitive with our peers, and financially sustainable. That’s a tall order, and it will take a multi-year plan to get there.”

Another priority in the year ahead, she said, will be “Cambridge’s contribution to the health of the planet”. The University is “aligned around a desire to make a difference in this critical domain. I hope to build on that alignment in the coming year and beyond, with the help of colleagues throughout the University… that have brought us this far. Greater alignment simply means that the University will build capacity to support the community of scholars working in this area, enable their interactions and cross-fertilisation, and position their work for greatest impact.”

In her closing remarks, the Vice-Chancellor reiterated her commitment to creating a forum for public dialogue on difficult topics, enhancing the role of the University as an environment in which free speech is actively fostered. She concluded by expressing an aspiration for the University of Cambridge to take on a leading role as a national institution.

“I’m convinced that Cambridge cannot be a great global university without being a great national and a great regional university too. Our impact on the world starts at home. I want to learn more about Cambridge’s opportunities and obligations in the East of England and the United Kingdom.”

“I look forward to seeing more of this beautiful country – especially the parts to the north and west that I have not seen before. I look forward to visiting areas with many Cambridge applicants and alumni, and areas with very few. I look forward to meeting partners and potential partners throughout the UK. And I look forward to engaging meaningfully with current and future development plans for our city, our county, and the wider region.”

Delivered at the Senate House, the Annual Address followed the ceremony for the election of the Proctors and the swearing-in of the Constables, and was open to all members of the University community.

Read the full address

Watch the full address



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Drier savannas and grasslands store more climate-buffering carbon than previously thought

Fire in oak savannah

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Savannas and grasslands in drier climates around the world store more carbon than scientists previously thought and are helping to slow the rate of climate warming, according to a new study.

Because drier savannas are more sensitive to changes in fires, the decreases in burned area in those ecosystems has resulted in soils storing more carbon than they are releasingAdam Pellegrini

The study estimates that soils in savanna-grassland regions worldwide have gained 640 million metric tons of stored carbon over the past two decades.

This is because over the last 20 years, fire suppression has led to smaller wildfires, and less burned area in drier savannas and grasslands. 

When soil microbes break down fallen leaves, dead plant matter and roots, the carbon in this plant biomass is released and can associate with minerals in the soil to become very stable. But the energy of an intense fire can burn it back off, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Fires are being suppressed because of population expansion, and landscape fragmentation caused by the introduction of roads, croplands and pastures in savannas and grasslands.

The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, is based on a reanalysis of datasets from 53 long-term fire-manipulation experiments worldwide, as well as field-sampling at six of those sites.

“We found that the potential – at very high fire frequencies – to release soil carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide is greatest in dry areas. The potential to store carbon in soil when fires are less frequent is also the greatest in these dry areas,” said Dr Adam Pellegrini in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and lead author of the study.

The reduction in the size and frequency of wildfires in dryland savannas has led to an estimated 23% increase in carbon stored in topsoil. This increase was not foreseen by most of the state-of-the-art ecosystem models used by climate researchers. As a result, the researchers say, the climate-buffering impacts of dryland savannas are likely to have been underestimated.

Soil contains at least three times more organic carbon than the atmosphere or terrestrial plants, making it an important global carbon pool.

“Our findings show that because drier savannas are more sensitive to changes in fires, the decreases in burned area in those ecosystems has resulted in soils storing more carbon than they are releasing,” said Pellegrini.  

He added: “Many of the ecosystem models that are used in simulating the effects of global change on carbon cycling are unlikely to have captured these dynamics.”

The study involved twenty researchers from institutions around the globe, who looked at recent changes in burned area and fire frequency in savannas, other grasslands, seasonal woodlands and forests.

Across 888,000 square miles (2.3 million square kilometers) of dryland savanna-grasslands, where fire frequency and burned area declined over the past two decades, soil carbon rose by an estimated 23%.

But in more humid savanna-grassland regions covering 533,000 square miles (1.38 million square kilometers), more frequent wildfires and increased burned area resulted in an estimated 25% loss in soil carbon over the past two decades.

The net change during that time was a gain of 0.64 petagrams, or 640 million metric tons, of soil carbon. 

“In the past couple of decades, global savannas and grasslands have slowed climate warming more than they have accelerated it, despite fires. But there is absolutely no guarantee that this will continue in the future,” said Peter Reich, Director of the Institute for Global Change Biology at the University of Michigan, who was also involved in the study. 

“No single region – from the Amazon rainforest, to the US Great Plains grasslands to Canada’s boreal forest – can alone store sufficient carbon to make a large contribution to slowing climate change. But together, they can,” said Pellegrini.

He added: “There are several savanna and grassland regions where soil carbon-credit projects are being developed, so understanding their capacity to sequester carbon is relevant to those regions.”

This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the US Department of Energy. 

Reference: Pellegrini, A.F.A, et al.: ‘Soil carbon storage capacity of drylands under altered fire regimes.’ Nature Climate Change, October 2023. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01800-7

Adapted from a press release by the University of Michigan.

Learn more about Adam Pellegrini’s work.



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New electric buses roll out to carry students, staff and public on extended Universal route

Members of the University team who have worked to bring new electric buses to the Universal service

source: www.cam.ac.uk

A new fleet of nine electric buses will operate on an extended Universal bus route from October, after the University of Cambridge and Whippet buses announced a new 8-year contract for the popular Cambridge service.

The U bus service supports growth and the local economy and is the only privately operated and funded fully electric bus service in the UK.Professor Andy Neely, Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations

Subsidised by the University, but open to everyone, the U bus has been operating for 20 years. University staff and students use the service, as well as Eddington residents, sixth-form students, shoppers, tourists and key workers.

Professor Andy Neely, Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations, said: “The U bus service supports growth and the local economy and is the only privately operated and funded fully electric bus service in the UK.

“The service has bucked the national trend by exceeding pre-COVID ridership levels this year. 2022/23 has been the busiest year ever on the Universal bus, with more than 719,000 passengers.”

Professor Ian Leslie, Chair of the University’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy Committee and Transport Working Group, said: “The Universal bus supports the university’s commitment to environmental sustainability, in particular sustainable business travel, as well as its work to meet the access requirements of all students.

“From the beginning of the new academic year (2 October 2023) the bus route will enable Girton, Homerton, Selwyn, Newnham and Wolfson Colleges to have more convenient access to the service, as well as buses now going to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (Addenbrooke’s site) at the weekends as well as on weekdays.”

Jonathan Ziebart, Managing Director at Ascendal UK, parent company to Whippet, said: “The University’s latest investment will see a fleet of fully electric buses, offering cutting-edge technology and innovative safety features to provide a truly premium travel experience. Some of the key features include a state-of-the-art Camera Monitoring System replacing the need for wing mirrors. In parallel, we will be cascading our former Universal buses across Whippet’s local bus network, helping to improve passenger experience whilst lowering emissions.”

Nicoletta Gennaro, Group Head of Marketing and Customer Experience for Ascendal, said: “After many months of intensive effort, we are proud of the passenger-centric environment we have created on our new vehicles. We have dedicated special attention to customer experience, providing our passengers with high-quality vegan leather seats, and other features such as wireless charging, stop buttons on each seat, and high-quality WiFi.”

The standard single journey fare is £2, however University card holders (students and staff) can travel on the U bus for £1 per single trip. The new contract will provide a ‘split service’, with half of Universal buses serving Girton College at the northern end of the route, and half routed along Grange Road and Newnham Road to better serve Wolfson College, with some returning to Hills Road to connect with Homerton College and the Faculty of Education.

The new buses all have sustainability-themed names chosen from a selection of imaginative suggestions put forward by pupils at the University of Cambridge Primary School in Eddington. The bus names are: Bus Lightyear, Pollution Solution, Net-Zero Hero, Greenhopper, The Sustainable Hulk, The Peregreen Falcon, Eco Eddie, Lightning McGreen and The Green Clean Machine.



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Autistic individuals have increased risk of chronic physical health conditions across the whole body

Two autistic friends sitting outside using stim toys and laughing at their phones

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Autistic people have higher rates of chronic physical health conditions across the whole body and are more likely to have complex health needs, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge. Their findings, published in the journal Molecular Autism, have important implications for the clinical care of autistic people.

This study emphasizes the increased health vulnerability of autistic people both in the types and number of conditions they may haveElizabeth Weir

Previous studies have shown that autistic people are dying far younger than others and that they are more likely to experience a range of physical health conditions. Until now, it was believed that autistic people were more likely to have specific conditions, such as gastrointestinal pain, sleep problems, and epilepsy/seizure disorders.

The new study is different in that it investigated a much wider range of health risks than has been done before and shows that autistic people experience a much broader range of health vulnerabilities than was previously thought.

Specifically, autistic people are more likely to have physical health conditions across all organ systems, including the brain (such as migraine), the gastrointestinal system (for example coeliac disease), and the endocrine system (for example endometriosis), compared to non-autistic people.

Dr Elizabeth Weir, a Research Associate at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, who led the team, said: “This study emphasizes the increased health vulnerability of autistic people both in the types and number of conditions they may have. We now need to understand the causes of these increased risks, which are likely multifactorial in nature.”

This is the first study to show that autistic people are more likely than non-autistic people to experience ‘physical health multimorbidity’, meaning that they have at least two or more physical health conditions. These include co-occurring fibromyalgia (which causes chronic pain throughout the body) and polycystic ovarian syndrome (which causes irregular menstrual cycles, infertility, excess hair growth, and acne in women) across different organ systems.

The study was conducted by a team at the ARC and used an anonymized, self-report survey to compare the experiences of 1,129 autistic people with 1,176 non-autistic people aged 16-90 years. The participants were international, although 67% of participants were from the UK.  

The survey assessed risk of 60 physical health conditions across nine different organ systems (gastrointestinal, endocrine, rheumatological, neurological, ocular, renal/hepatic, otolaryngological, haematological, and dermatological). The analysis took into account other factors such as age, sex assigned at birth, country of residence, ethnicity, education-level, alcohol use, smoking, body mass index, and family medical history.

The team found that autistic people were more likely to have diagnosed medical conditions across all nine organ systems tested, compared to non-autistic people. Regarding specific conditions, autistic people had higher rates of 33 specific conditions compared to non-autistic peers. These included coeliac disease, gallbladder disease, endometriosis, syncope (fainting or passing out), vertigo, urinary incontinence, eczema, and iron deficiency anaemia.

Dr John Ward, a visiting research scientist at the ARC in Cambridge, who conducted the analysis, said: “This research adds to the body of evidence that the healthcare needs of autistic people are greater than those of non-autistic people. More research is required, particularly surrounding the early identification, and monitoring of chronic conditions.”

This is also the first epidemiological study to show that Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) – a group of disorders that affects connective tissues and which cause symptoms such as joint hypermobility, loose joints that dislocate easily, joint pain and clicking joints, skin that bruises easily, extreme tiredness, digestive problems, dizziness, stretchy skin, wounds that are slow to heal, organ prolapse, and hernias – may be more common among autistic women than non-autistic women.

The new research also replicates previous findings to show that autistic people have higher rates of all central sensitivity syndromes, which are a varied group of conditions that are related to dysregulation of the central nervous system, compared to non-autistic people. Central sensitivity syndromes include irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ), migraine, tinnitus, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and fibromyalgia.

The new study also investigated risks of physical health multimorbidity with a novel application of ‘network analysis’, a technique used to understand relationships between different parts of a system. This analysis method is regularly used in neuroscience to understand how different regions of the brain interact with each other. In this study, the analysis assessed how often conditions from different organ systems occurred together in the same person. In addition to highlighting complex health needs, this analysis established for the first time that the combinations of medical conditions that frequently co-occur may be different between autistic and non-autistic adults.

These results are preliminary evidence that healthcare providers such as GPs or family physicians need to be monitoring the health care needs of autistic people much more closely.

Dr Carrie Allison, Director of Strategy at the ARC and a member of the team, added: “These findings highlight the acute need to adapt the healthcare system to better meet the needs of autistic people. These results must be confirmed in larger, population-based samples.”

Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the ARC and another member of the team, said: “We are aware of the risks of mental health conditions in autistic people, but this new research identifies their risks of physical health conditions too. We need to urgently re-evaluate current health care systems to improve support for autistic people.”

Funding for this project was provided by the Autism Centre of Excellence at Cambridge, the Rosetrees Trust, the Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, the Corbin Charitable Trust, the Queen Anne’s Gate Foundation, the MRC, the Wellcome Trust and the Innovative Medicines Initiative.

Reference
Ward, J. & Weir, E., Allison, C., Baron-Cohen, S. Increased rates of chronic physical health conditions across all organ systems in autistic adolescents and adults. Molecular Autism (2023).



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Cambridge events commemorate Black History Month 2023

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Screenings, re-enactments, lectures and panel discussions are taking place across the University and Colleges throughout October.

Learn about the contribution to the war effort of African-American women during the Second World War. Hear the rarely heard stories of how they fought not just fascism, but racism and sexism too. Murray Edwards College will host a screening, on Thursday 5th October, of ‘Invisible Warriors’. Following the screening there will be a virtual Q&A with the filmmaker, Gregory Cooke, live from the United States. Book for ‘Invisible Warriors’.

On Thursday 12th October, join award-winning writer, Sharon Dodua Otoo, as she discusses her latest novel ‘Ada’s Realm’ at Jesus College. Set in both Ghana and Germany, the novel’s fascinating storyline spans several centuries. Book here for this event.  

The University’s Black Advisory Hub is hosting the first in a series of seminars on Friday 13th October on the theme of language and race.

While attention is most often paid to racist incidents that involve explicit discrimination, less focus is given to the ways in which language and its use (or misuse) in teaching and learning contexts has an impact on Black students and their engagement with their studies. This series of four focus groups invites Cambridge students and staff to reflect on the power and impact of language choices on their educational experiences, the cumulative impact of everyday racism in choices of language in teaching and learning contexts, and the burden placed on Black and other racially minoritised students to educate others. Register for this online seminar, and others in the series

The Black Advisory Hub will be hosting two induction events for new students. The first, for undergraduates, will be held on Thursday 19th October between 5.30 and 7.30pm in the Student Union lounge. The second one, for postgraduates, will be held the following week, on Thursday 26th October, in the same venue and at the same time of day.

On the morning of Sunday 15th October, Chine McDonald, Director of Christian think tank Theos, and Cambridge alumna, will deliver the sermon at Great St Mary’s Church. The sermon is entitled ‘God is not a White man’. The St Catharine’s College Girls’ Choir will sing.

Homerton College will host its second Black History Month formal dinner on Wednesday 18th October. Last year’s event attracted well over 100 students and distinguished guests. 

Baldwin vs. Buckley DebateThe Cambridge Union, Tuesday 24th October, 7.30pm

Following a critically acclaimed run in New York and London, the American Vicarious’ production of the historic debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. is re-enacted live at the Cambridge Union. Watch as the actors recreate this historic debate in the same spots where Baldwin and Buckley faced each other in February 1965. Book your tickets.

Black Men on the Couch will be hosted by the University’s Counselling Service and Corpus Christi College on Wednesday 25th October.

Lord Simon Woolley, George the Poet and Professor Jason Arday will be in conversation with counsellor, Rotimi Akinsete, to discuss how to maintain good mental health. Black men are twice as likely to be sectioned as their White counterparts, and are also less likely to reach out for support if they encounter mental health struggles.

The University of Cambridge’s annual Race Equality Lecture on Thursday 26th October will be given by Professor Robbie Shilliam of Johns Hopkins University. Robbie is the author of the recently published book, ‘Decolonizing Politics’. His research focuses on the political and intellectual complicities of colonialism and race in the global order, with a particular interest in the Rastafari movement

Following this lecture why not head to St Catharine’s College for Night Songs in the Chapel which will feature a repertoire celebrating Black composers.

This year’s Gloria Carpenter Lecture will be held at Selwyn College on Monday 30th October. It will be delivered by Dr Bronwen Everill of the Centre for African Studies and is titled: ‘Good Intentions: Slavery, Abolition, and Inequality in the Modern World’. Book your place.



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University of Cambridge awarded a Gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework 2023

The Senate House and Old Schools, Cambridge

source: www.cam.ac.uk

TEF 2023 awards of Gold, Silver and Bronze are based on universities’ performance across two key aspects: ‘student experience’ and ‘student outcomes’

“Excellent teaching that is based on our outstanding research, exceptional learning opportunities and individualised student support are at the heart of the Collegiate University’s educational mission”Professor Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education

The Office for Students (OfS) has published the results of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023. The University of Cambridge has received a Gold award, the highest available to participating higher education providers.

TEF awards are based on universities’ performances across two aspects: the student experience and student outcomes. The University of Cambridge received a Gold rating in these aspects and an overall rating of Gold.

Student experience and outcomes are measured using datasets including Student Barometer Surveys and the Longitudinal Education Outcomes data collected by the UK Government. Qualitative sources such as universities’ own narrative submissions of their educational offer and student support are also taken into account. In addition, this TEF round marks the first use of formal submissions from students to inform universities’ individual TEF ratings. 

Professor Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, said:

 “I am delighted that the University of Cambridge has been awarded a Gold rating – the highest TEF rating available to participating universities. A Gold rating means that the student experience and student outcomes are typically outstanding for all our groups of students, including students from underrepresented groups, and across our range of courses and subjects.

 “Excellent teaching that is based on our outstanding research, exceptional learning opportunities and individualised student support are at the heart of the Collegiate University’s educational mission, and we are glad that this has been recognised by the OfS’s TEF panel in its latest round of assessments.

 “The University’s Gold TEF rating is testimony to the exceptional work of our dedicated teaching, support and technical staff, and I would like to thank them for their continued commitment to ensuring that our students thrive, both academically and personally.

 “I would also like to thank our students for their role as active learners, and for their engagement and feedback, which is invaluable to our ability to continually improve our educational practice and facilities. Finally, I am grateful to the Student Union team who provided a detailed student submission to the TEF panel.”



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Blog: Permacrisis – A plan to fix a fractured world

A dark skyline above a polluted cityscape

source: www.cam.ac.uk

In this blog post, Mohamed A. El-Erian introduces us to the theme of permacrisis which is central the new book he has co-authored with Gordon Brown and Michael Spence.

Earlier this month, G20 leaders spoke of a planet gripped by “cascading crises.” Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World (out 28th September) is our attempt to understand and explain where we’ve gone wrong, and then go a step further by presenting a plan to better manage the future for the benefit of the many and not the few. 

Behind this permacrisis are failed approaches to growth, economic management, and global governance  In analysing these main drivers, we show why things will get even worse if policymakers fail to course-correct. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Far from it. Rather, our aim is to put forward a positive and realistic set of actions that can take us off this bumpy road and toward a better destination – reimagined models that can turn vicious cycles into virtuous ones.

‘Permacrisis’ originated from a series of Zoom calls among friends started during the first Covid lockdown. While Gordon, Mike, Reid and I came from different professional backgrounds and with different perspectives, we were united by a common concern about the world our children would inherit. And what kept us together is the desire to put forward an actionable agenda for improving their future.
 
What lies behind much of what has gone wrong, and is still going wrong, are those broken approaches to growth, domestic economic management, and global governance. The longer fractures persist, the more worrisome the global outlook. 

When we think of the stubbornly high inflation that has hit the poor particularly hard, climate emergencies increasingly met by a global shrug and not a groundswell, lagging growth within and across countries, ever greater indebtedness, worsening inequalities and spreading insecurity – we are reminded of the painful signposts that have come to define this permacrisis. Yet while approaches are broken, they are not beyond repair.

It is possible to deliver inclusive, sustainable and secure growth by harnessing strides in artificial intelligence and other innovations, fixing supply-side constraints, addressing labor and learning shortages and, where needed, restructuring debt for growth. 

Economic management, which as of late has come off as a contradiction in terms, can be made to better work by greater coordination and accountability, crowding-in more voices with diverse perspectives, and evolving new frameworks and targets that respond to – rather than reject – new realities such as a world facing supply rigidities. And a rapidly changing global order means we need to rethink governance structures and multilateral institutions so they can better cope with the shift from a unipolar to multipolar world, hyper-globalisation toward a globalisation-lite rather than fragmentation, and the slide toward neo-nationalism.
 
There is no big bang corrective measure. As hard as the four of us tried, the proposals we set out in ‘Permacrisis’ are not a singular silver bullet. Rather, we put forward a menu of actions that are both desirable and achievable –a set of steps that build positive momentum and open the way for virtuous cycles linking economics, finance, institutions, politics and, most importantly, societal wellbeing. New approaches to growth, economic management, and global governance, each on their own, will get us some of the way to a better destination. But acting on all three fronts at once is how we turn additive gains into multiplicative ones. That’s the kind of breakthrough needed to end today’s permacrisis. And it is within our reach. 

About the authors

Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, a role he held for more than a decade, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He is credited with preventing a second Great Depression through his leadership at the 2009 London G20 summit where he mobilised global leaders to walk the world back from the financial brink. Today he is fully engaged in international development work serving as the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, spearheading efforts to deliver a quality and inclusive education for all of the world’s children, and as the World Health Organization’s Ambassador for Global Health Finance. Brown has a PhD in History from the University of Edinburgh. A Member of Parliament between 1983 and 2015, he lives in Fife, Scotland, and is married to Sarah, and the couple have two teenagers.

Mohamed A. El-Erian

Mohamed A. El-Erian is the President of Queens’ College, University of Cambridge. Since 2014, he has served as Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he formerly served as Chief Executive and Co-chief Investment Officer. He is Chair of Gramercy Fund Management, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and a Financial Times contributing editor. He is a Senior Global Fellow at the Lauder Institute and the Rene M. Kern Practice Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was previously a deputy director at the International Monetary Fund, a managing director at Solomon Smith Barney/Citigroup, and President and CEO of Harvard Management Company. From 2012 to 2017, Dr El-Erian served as Chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council. His books When Markets Collide (2008) and The Only Game in Town (2016) were New York Times bestsellers. 

Michael Spence

Michael Spence is the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and a Council on Foreign Relations Distinguished Visiting Fellow. He is an adjunct professor at Bocconi University and an honorary fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. In 2001, Spence received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in the field of information economics. He is the author of The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World (2011). Spence served as Dean of the Stanford Business School from 1990 to 1999 and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard from 1984 to 1990. He is a recipient of the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize for excellence in teaching and the John Bates Clark Medal recognising American economists under forty.




The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

New vaccine technology could protect from future viruses and variants

Digital generated image of different variants of virus cells against a black background.

source: www.cam.ac.uk

Studies of a ‘future-proof’ vaccine candidate have shown that just one antigen can be modified to provide a broadly protective immune response in animals. The studies suggest that a single vaccine with combinations of these antigens – a substance that causes the immune system to produce antibodies against it – could protect against an even greater range of current and future coronaviruses.

This is an exceptionally different vaccine technology – it’s a real turning pointJonathan Heeney

The vaccine antigen technology, developed by the University of Cambridge and spin-out DIOSynVax in early 2020, provided protection against all known variants of SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – as well as other major coronaviruses, including those that caused the first SARS epidemic in 2002.

The studies in mice, rabbits and guinea pigs – an important step before beginning human clinical trials, currently underway in Southampton and Cambridge – found that the vaccine candidate provided a strong immune response against a range of coronaviruses by targeting the parts of the virus that are required for replication. The vaccine candidate is based on a single digitally designed and immune-optimised antigen.

Even though the vaccine was designed before the emergence of the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2, it provided a strong protection against all of these and against more recent variants, suggesting that vaccines based on DIOSynVax antigens may also protect against future SARS-CoV-2 variants.

DIOSynVax (Digitally Immune Optimised Synthetic Vaccines) uses a combination of computational biology, protein structure, immune optimisation, and synthetic biology to maximise and widen the spectrum of protection that vaccines can provide against global threats including existing and future virus outbreaks. Its vaccine candidates can be deployed in a variety of vaccine delivery and manufacturing platforms. The results are reported in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Since the SARS outbreak in 2002, coronavirus ‘spillovers’ from animals to humans have been a threat to public health, and require vaccines that provide broad-based protection. “In nature, there are lots of these viruses just waiting for an accident to happen,” said Professor Jonathan Heeney from Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, who led the research. “We wanted to come up with a vaccine that wouldn’t only protect against SARS-CoV-2, but all its relatives.”

All currently available vaccines, such as the seasonal flu vaccine and existing Covid-19 vaccines, are based on virus strains or variants that arose at some point in the past. “However, viruses are mutating and changing all the time,” said Heeney. “Current vaccines are based on a specific isolate or variant that occurred in the past, it’s possible that a new variant will have arisen by the time we get to the point that the vaccine is manufactured, tested and can be used by people.”

Heeney’s team has been developing a new approach to coronavirus vaccines, by targeting their ‘Achilles heel’. Instead of targeting just the spike proteins on the virus that change to evade our immune system, the Cambridge vaccine targets the critical regions of the virus that it needs to complete its virus life cycle. The team identifies these regions through computer simulations and selecting conserved structurally engineered antigens. “This approach allows us to have a vaccine with a broad effect that viruses will have trouble getting around,” said Heeney.

Using this approach, the team identified a unique antigen structure that gave a broad-based immune responses against different Sarbeco coronaviruses, the large group of SARS and SARS-CoV-2 related viruses that occur in nature. The optimised antigen is compatible with all vaccine delivery systems: the team administered it as a DNA immunogen (in collaboration with the University of Regensburg), a weakened version of a virus (Modified Vaccinia Ankara, supported by ProBiogen), and as an mRNA vaccine (in collaboration with Ethris). In all cases, the optimised antigen generated a strong immune response in mice, rabbits and guinea pigs against a range of coronaviruses. Based on a strong safety profile, the “first-in-human” clinical trials are ongoing at Southampton and Cambridge NIHR Clinical Research Facilities. The last booster immunisations will conclude by the end of September.

“Unlike current vaccines that use wild-type viruses or parts of viruses that have caused trouble in the past, this technology combines lessons learned from nature’s mistakes and aims to protect us from the future,” said Heeney. “These optimised synthetic antigens generate broad immune responses, targeted to the key sites of the virus that can’t change easily. It opens the door for vaccines against viruses that we don’t yet know about. This is an exceptionally different vaccine technology – it’s a real turning point.”

The research was initially funded by the DHSC UK Vaccine Network programme and later in part by the Innovate UK DIOS-CoVax programme. The DIOSynVax pipeline includes vaccine candidates for influenza viruses, haemorrhagic fever viruses, and coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, the latter of which is currently in clinical trials.

DIOSynVax is a spin-out company from the University of Cambridge, established in 2017 with the support of Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialisation arm. Jonathan Heeney is the Professor of Comparative Pathology at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow at Darwin College.

Reference:
Sneha Vishwanath et al. ‘A computationally designed antigen eliciting broad humoral responses against SARS-CoV-2 and related sarbecoviruses.’ Nature Biomedical Engineering (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-023-01094-2



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Widely-used COVID-19 antiviral could be helping SARS-CoV-2 to evolve

Image of SARS-CoV-2 viruses

Molnupiravir, an antiviral drug used to treat patients with COVID-19, appears to be driving SARS-CoV-2 to mutate and evolve, with some of these new viruses being transmitted onwards, a new study has shown. It is not clear, however, whether these mutated viruses pose an increased risk to patients or are able to evade the vaccine.

Molnupiravir belongs to a class of drugs that can cause the virus to mutate so much that it is fatally weakened. But what we’ve found is that in some patients, this process doesn’t kill all the virusesChristopher Ruis

The drug works by disrupting the virus’s genome, causing it to develop random mutations as it replicates, weakening the virus to prevent replication, thereby enabling clearance of infection.

But in research published today in Nature, scientists have shown that in some cases, mutated forms of the virus have been able to be transmitted from patients treated with molnupiravir and spread within the community.

Dr Christopher Ruis from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge said: “Molnupiravir is one of a number of drugs being used to fight COVID-19. It belongs to a class of drugs that can cause the virus to mutate so much that it is fatally weakened. But what we’ve found is that in some patients, this process doesn’t kill all the viruses, and some mutated viruses can spread. This is important to take into account when assessing the overall benefits and risks of molnupiravir and similar drugs.”

Molnupiravir, marketed under the brand name Lagevrio, is licensed for the treatment of COVID-19 in several countries, including the UK, USA and Japan. It has been used to treat the disease since late 2021.

In the body, molnupiravir is converted into a molecule that disrupts the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, introducing some nucleotide mutations in its RNA – randomly changing some Cs to Ts and some Gs to As. These changes mean that as the virus replicates, its progeny get weaker, reducing how quickly the virus is able to replicate and ridding the body of the virus.

However, concern has been expressed that in some cases, a number of mutated viruses may not be killed off quickly enough and so are able to infect other individuals, potentially allowing new mutated viruses to spread.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of countries – spearheaded by the Cambridge-led COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium – sequenced virus samples, depositing the information in databases such as the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) and the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC). This allowed scientists and public health agencies to track the evolution and spread of the virus, and in particular to look out for so-called ‘variants of concern’ – versions of the virus with mutations that might make them more transmissible, more lethal, or able to evade the immune system of vaccinated individuals, such as the Delta and Omicron variants.

A team of researchers from the UK and South Africa noticed a number of viral genomes that contained a large number of mutations, particularly where Cs had changed to Ts and Gs to As. While C-to-T mutations are relatively common overall in SARS-CoV-2 evolution, G-to-A mutations occur much less frequently, and a higher proportion of G-to-A mutations is associated with molnupiravir treatment.

The team then analysed a family tree of more than 15 million SARS-CoV-2 sequences in the GISAID and INSDC databases looking for which mutations had occurred at each point in the virus’s evolutionary history. They found that viruses with this signature of mutations had begun to emerge almost exclusively from 2022 onwards and in countries and age groups where molnupiravir was being widely used to treat COVID-19.

To confirm the link, the researchers examined treatment records in England and found that at least one in three of viruses showing the mutational signature involved the use of molnupiravir.

The researchers also saw small clusters of patients infected with mutated viruses, which suggests that these new viruses were being passed from one person to another. However, none of the known variants of concern has so far been linked to the use of molnupiravir.

Dr Theo Sanderson from the Francis Crick Institute, said: “COVID-19 is still having a major effect on human health, and some people have difficulty clearing the virus, so it’s important we develop drugs which aim to cut short the length of infection. But our evidence shows that a specific antiviral drug, molnupiravir, also results in new mutations, increasing the genetic diversity in the surviving viral population.

“Our findings are useful for ongoing assessment of the risks and benefits of molnupiravir treatment. The possibility of persistent antiviral-induced mutations needs to be taken into account for the development of new drugs which work in a similar way.”

The research was funded by Wellcome, Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Fondation Botnar, UK Cystic Fibrosis Trust and the Oxford Martin School.

Reference
Sanderson, T et al. A molnupiravir-associated mutational signature in global SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Nature; 25 Sept 2023: DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06649-6



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

How new model boosts supply and lowers prices for generic drugs

Pills and a capsule on pastel pink colored background. 3D rendered image.

First empirical evidence for Civica Rx, a health care utility, finds increased supply security and reduced costs for health systems, says study in NEJM Catalyst authored by two Cambridge Judge Business School academics.

Civica Rx, a not-for-profit drug manufacturer founded by seven US health systems and three philanthropic organisations, increased supply security and lowered cost on aggregate for 20 drug products, according to the first empirical evidence of Civica’s impact published in the journal NEJM Catalyst.

“Results show that Civica was able to improve generic drug access above the wholesaler model,” says the article in NEJM Catalyst, a publication that is part of the New England Journal of Medicine family. “Chronic drug shortages have been an extremely challenging problem and elusive to sustainable improvement in the past. This makes these early results highly promising.”

The NEJM Catalyst article (entitled “Vaccinating Health Care Supply Chains Against Market Failure: The Case of Civica Rx”) – is co-authored by the co-founders of the Healthcare Utility Initiative at Cambridge Judge Business School: Carter Dredge, Senior Vice President and Lead Futurist at SSM Health in St. Louis, Missouri (one of Civica’s founding health systems), who is a Business Doctorate candidate at Cambridge Judge, and by Stefan Scholtes, Dennis Gillings Professor of Health Management at Cambridge Judge.

Key breakthrough is structural rather than technological

“The results of this study are very encouraging for patients and health systems,” says Carter Dredge. “The innovation of Civica is not technological but rather structural: a new business model that injects a new type of supplier into a decades-old market for generic drugs in order to address a market failure.”

Civica is based on new business model called a health care utility (HCU) that prioritises access over profit. It was founded in 2018 to address generic drug shortages and high prices that have plagued health systems in the US and elsewhere, and now provides more than 75 critical medications at risk for shortages to US health systems.

Government intervention hasn’t solved problems in cost and supply

“Some problems in health care are so complex that traditional private-sector or governmental interventions alone have not been able to solve the problems,” the study says. “Although competition increases quality and reduces the cost of goods and services across a wide spectrum of industries, health care seems intractably resistant to standard forms of competition — particularly in its hyperspecialized supply chains.”

For example, the study says that the average price in 2022 for the uninsured for a box of five pen cartridges of insulin used to manage diabetes was more than $500, which results in 25% of Americans who rely on insulin being forced to ration their medications because of cost.

Study favourably compared Civica to 62 drug wholesalers

The study focused on a cohort of 14 critical and shortage-prone hospital drugs that represented 20 distinct products (some medicines have multiple products due to different dose and vial size) between 2020 and 2022. Data comes from internal hospital pharmacy operations systems, supply chain purchasing databases, wholesaler product information, the American Society of Health System Pharmacists, and Civica.

The authors estimated that Civica fulfilled its contractually guaranteed volume at 96%, whereas the wholesalers fulfilled their orders at 86%, with the difference being statistically significant (p=0.03). Further, Civica offered an additional product access benefit of 43% above the contractual minimum volume.

In addition, wholesaler prices at the order level were estimated to be on average 46% above the Civica price for the same product in the same year; however, through highly proactive health system purchasing efforts to buy more volume when prices were low from the 62 non-Civica manufacturers, this closed the actual achieved cost-savings gap between the wholesalers and Civica to 2.7% in aggregate, with Civica still being the lower-cost option.

(The 14 medicines are: bivalirudin to prevent blood clotting, the antibiotic daptomycin, anti-inflammatory dexamethasone, narcotic pain medicine fentanyl, pre-surgery medicine katamine, labetalol for hypertension, local anesthetic lidocaine, seizure medication lorazepam, naloxone to treat opioid overdose, neostigmine for anesthesia reversal, ondansetron to prevent nausea, rocuronium bromide for general anesthesia, sodium bicarbonate for cardiac arrest, and the antibiotic vancomycin.)

New model sells drugs at same transparent price to all health systems

The healthcare utility model is governed by stewards rather than owned, and pricing is uniform for all customers in a bid to maximise access rather than profits. Civica members purchase Civica medications at the same transparent price, as determined by the lowest appropriate cost necessary to sustainably provide the drugs over a 5-year period.

The seven large US health systems that founded Civica are: Catholic Health Initiatives, now CommonSpirit Health; HCA Healthcare; Intermountain Healthcare; Mayo Clinic; Providence St. Joseph Health; SSM Health; and Trinity Health. The three founding philanthropies are the Gary and Mary West Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Peterson Center on Healthcare.

Civica now serves more than 50 US health systems

The seven founding health systems have since been joined by more than 50 other health systems covering more than 1,500 hospitals and about 225,000 hospital beds. Through July 2023, more than 56 million cumulative patient doses of Civica medicines have been administered.

In conclusion, the authors say:

“The problems we face in health care are daunting, but many of them are solvable with the right approach. In learning from Civica’s experience, some of the most fundamental answers may already be at our fingertips.

“This article provides the first empirical evidence that this approach is working.”



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